The Friday Five, 11/18/22: 5 things I've been up to this week

This month is going by super fast—I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving. I'm headed to Houston for a short trip this weekend to keep my Delta Silver Medallion status—I only needed one more flight to do it—and then Indiana next week also for Thanksgiving at my boyfriend's house. We will be doing Thanksgiving on the day of, with my parents, as well.

Pig candy at Bad Brad's, Lake Orion
"Pig Candy" at Bad Brad's, Lake Orion

What I've been up to this week:
  1. Eating out. Last weekend I ate out a lot because a few of my boyfriend's friends were visiting from Indiana, but I also had to be careful about it—my GI doctor suggested I do a hydrogen (glucose) test on Monday, and I had a laundry list of foods I couldn't eat last weekend (two days prior to the test) because of it. Thankfully, meat was on the list; we went to Bad Brad's BBQ in Lake Orion, one of my favorites, on Friday night (when I could still eat non-gluten-free things ...) and to Korean BBQ on Saturday night in Novi. The KBBQ place used to be the only AYCE place in this area (all-you-can-eat) but unfortunately they don't do that anymore, so I suggested bringing a group so that everyone can have a bit of everything. On Sunday, we did tacos (corn, for me, with no onions due to the restrictive diet) via Doordash from a place we like in Waterford, too. 
  2. UNO's Grand Opening event. I headed back to the UNO's in Farmington Hills (inside the Delta hotel, near Grand River/Halsted) again on Wednesday with my parents—I had been invited as an influencer to attend, but the event was actually open to the public, with free pizza for all, to celebrate the "official" grand opening of the restaurant. See the reel here. 
  3. Hamilton at the Fisher Theatre. I have seen Hamilton one other time, in early 2019, and it was fabulous, so I was looking forward to this; I think it was even BETTER than the last time, too. It's playing at the Fisher until December 4th, but I highly suggest booking tickets now if you'd like to go, because every night is mostly sold out, from what I saw on Ticketmaster.
  4. Buying Taylor Swift tickets! And it was a PROCESS, haha. It took me about 8 hours last week or the week before to sign up for the Verified Fan presale list, because it kept kicking me out, so I knew the actual sale would be crazy. I got waitlisted for the presale list, but three friends received codes. Two of them wanted to ideally go to the Friday, 6/9/23 show, and one of them had a Saturday code, so they gave me their code AND their Ticketmaster login. The other had received a Friday code so I had one window open for Friday and one for Saturday. I joined the virtual "waiting room" around 9:30am, it opened at 10am, and I was able to purchase my tickets for that Saturday at 11am ... $260 per ticket, row 5 of the 200-level of Ford Field (good seats; not fantastic/100-level, but good), and I'm pretty thrilled about it, as I've never seen her in concert. One of my friends trying to get Friday tickets did get hers, but it took her about 5 hours in the online queue, which was nuts. Ticketmaster later said that 1.5 million fans had been given presale codes, but 14 MILLION PEOPLE logged on (you didn't have to put in your presale code until right before choosing tickets), which was crazy. I feel like next time they should just have you put in your presale code first ... the Capital One presale was supposed to be that Tuesday too, but Ticketmaster pushed it to Wednesday, and a lot of my Capital One cardholder friends weren't able to get tickets either. The general sale was supposed to be today, Friday, but TM ended up canceling it ... I think they most likely sold out of tickets. Definitely a "spectacle," as one friend called it!
  5. Seeing movies at the theater. I saw Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in 3D last week and it was really good; I'd probably give it 4/5 or 4.5/5, and the 3D is worth it, as that was pretty good too. Last night I saw The Menu, and although I wouldn't classify it as straight horror, it was pretty crazy ... probably 4/5 or maybe 4.25/5 for that one, too, and great cast, including Ralph Fiennes as the chef, Nicholas Hoult, Anya Taylor-Joy, John Leguizamo, and more.
KBBQ at Dae Jang Keum, Novi
KBBQ at Dae Jang Keum, Novi

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